Advances in fiber and glass processing technology have been driven by a demand for high quality optical fiber components for a variety of applications. For example, in recent years, CO2 laser-based glass processing machines played a key role in enabling a new generation of all-fiber optical components like ball lenses and tapered axicons, as well as simplifying the fabrication process of many other components like long period gratings, multimode and single mode signal and pump combiners, etc.
The control of the glass temperature is one of the most important parameters in order to achieve a controlled and repeatable glass shaping process. Current technology for sensing the fiber temperature relies on using charge coupled device (“CCD”) cameras for the detection of the visible emission of the heated optical fiber. To implement this method, a complex image processing algorithm is used to estimate the brightness of the fiber being melted. This method has two major weaknesses. Its first weakness is its speed and computing resource consumption. Because of the complexity of the algorithms, the low speed of this method limits the response time of the system. The second weakness of this method is that it can only detect high melting temperatures, when fiber emits visible light. This method cannot be used with low melting point fibers.
Accordingly, improved systems and methods for controlling the temperature of optical fibers during heating thereof are desired.